Liberals push for a Green New Deal as the way forward on climate change

TOPSHOT - US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, leaves a photo opportunity with the female Democratic members of the 116th US House of Representatives outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, January 4, 2019. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

Photo: Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Liberals around the country are talking about the idea of a Green New Deal, a sweeping set of policy goals to combat the effects of climate change 90 years after President Franklin Roosevelt’s expansion of federal agencies and regulations in response to the Great Depression.

A Green New Deal, prominently promoted by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after she upset a Democratic Party leader, has gained widespread attention in recent months. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the first high-profile Democrat to announce a 2020 White House bid, signaled support for the idea. Ocasio-Cortez and other incoming Democrats lobbied Speaker Nancy Pelosi to create a special committee on climate change, though many demands by liberals regarding specifics of the committee, including barring membership from any lawmaker who accepts campaign contributions from fossil fuel producers, were not met.

The Green New Deal at present is a set of largely amorphous and aspirational goals set out in a document by Ocasio-Cortez and other liberal advocacy groups. The list includes goals like “eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacturing, agricultural and other industries” and “meeting 100 percent of national power demand through renewable sources.”

“The House has 435 members, everyone has their own ideas about how to address issues, some of them vary,” said South Florida Democratic Rep. Ted Deutch. “But we’re only going to have progress if we’re focusing on the issue and doing something about it and that’s what the new members have helped to galvanize.”

Ocasio-Cortez recently referred to the Green New Deal as a “wartime-level, just economic mobilization plan to get to 100 percent renewable energy ASAP,” referring to a massive expansion of government agencies and an increase in taxes to make the nation’s energy system reliant on renewable energy instead of fossil fuels.

Florida Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who ousted Rep. Carlos Curbelo, one of the Republican Party’s leaders on climate issues, plans to make climate change a big part of her work in the next two years.

“To fight climate change, the federal government can do what South Florida does, call it by its name and recognize that climate change is in fact a threat, instead of removing references to it on its websites,” Mucarsel-Powell said in a statement. “The federal government should also follow South Florida’s lead by encouraging reductions in its carbon footprint and provide financial incentives to people and homeowners that want to be renewable energy leaders themselves.”

Many of the specifics within Ocasio-Cortez’s plan have no chance of passing a Republican-controlled Senate and gaining President Trump’s support, though her document states that one of the goals of the committee is to present legislative language by March 2020, in the midst of the presidential election. The idea would be to start passing bills if Democrats are able to control Congress and the White House.